Deer Ridge Board: Official Notice - I Refuse To Pay Invalid Special Assessment

The following letter was certified mailed, emailed, faxed and hand delivered to Luther Parker’s home, the GGRC’s attorney’s office and the Deer Ridge office.

You get to decide what is right for you with regard to the “special” assessment – but this is my position and I am ready to fight Joe Thomas, Luther Parker and the rest of the so called “board” in court over it.

To:      Luther Parker, GGRC “Board of Directors”

Re:      “Special” Assessment

Date:   March 9, 2010

Hand Delivered, Email & Certified Mail

This letter is to officially notify you that, as a result of advice received from independent legal counsel, I do not intend to pay the illegitimate “special” assessment that is purportedly due for our Unit A-202 at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort.

I have also included herewith two checks for our monthly GGRC charges:  $270 for our HOA fee and $136.42 for the charges for water and cable TV.

Even though paid, we continue to dispute both of these charges too – and have marked “Disputed” on these and many prior checks made for payments for these two ongoing fees.

Based on advice from legal counsel, these charges represent a gross overcharge of 82% above the amounts that should be charged according to the Master Deed and Bylaws.

If you wish to take me to court over the non-payment of the illegitimate “special” assessment, have at it.

I would be absolutely delighted to have a court hear all of the following reasons that the “special” assessment is invalid – and it would be much more cost effective to respond to your lawsuit and get a court ruling on several issues rather than instigate my planned litigation described below.

Attorney Says That “Special” Assessment Invalid For At Least Four Reasons

Based on a recent, independent review of our Master Deed and Bylaws, attorney Lewis Howard, Jr’s legal opinion is that this “special” Deer Ridge assessment is invalid for at least FOUR reasons:

1. The GGRC Master Deed and Bylaws do NOT allow for ANY kind of “special” assessment of any kind.  They only allow for monthly assessments that are set before December 1st of each year.
2. The amount of the assessment for every owner is WRONGLY calculated.  The “board” has applied what the attorney calls “arbitrary and capricious” cost allocations for ALL charges currently being paid by ALL owners at Deer Ridge.  This includes your monthly HOA fee, the amounts for water, cable TV, telephone AND the calculated amounts that are being charged for this “special” assessment.  The attorney says that ALL of these items MUST be in accordance with the Master Deed Percentages.  Hence, any amounts currently being charged to each and every owner for this “special” assessment is wrongly calculated and should not be made.
3. The “board” was required to provide COPIES of the detailed bid requests and bids to any and all owner to substantiate the Asinine Assessment’s outrageous $353,500 price tag – and NOT to just list, “Nuts and Bolts – $50,000!”  Since you were unwilling to do so, this assessment is voided.
4. The attorney has stated that the “board” is NOT the board.  The board is required to be elected at the annual meeting and the annual meeting is REQUIRED to be held in the first three months of the year – not in April.  The attorney states that the board is not the board and is powerless to implement ANYTHING.

I invite you to read the attached five page letter from Senior Partner Lewis Howard, Jr. at the law firm, Howard and Howard (www.howardhowardlaw.com).

My instructions to the law firm, Howard and Howard ( www.howardhowardlaw.com/ ) and Senior Partner Lewis Howard, Jr. were to objectively and candidly evaluate these issues with the goal of determining the legal validity and the merits of our pursuing a lawsuit against GGRC and/or the individuals who make up the current board along with Joe Thomas, the general manager.  This firm does not currently represent us for any pending litigation – but may be hired should we move forward.

You should also, by now, be fully aware that we have set up a separate escrow account for the “Deer Ridge Litigation Fund.”

Several owners have already contributed to this fund and more are joining every week.  Once our threshold is reached, we intend to immediately file one or more lawsuits concerning the matters discussed in this letter.  Note:  this will be done without further notice to you.

Executive Summary Of Attorney’s Findings

Here is my executive summary of Mr. Howard’s five page legal opinion.  I will try to put it in non-attorney terms to help you better understand the major consequences of the points made in his letter.

In addition to the fact that no legitimate, “special” assessment is due from ANY owners, Attorney Howard’s letter also makes the following pivotal points regarding GGRC and RML:

1. You are REQUIRED to charge all owners ONLY in accordance with the Master Deed Percentages for everything:  monthly assessments, water, cable TV, etc.   This means no more 82% overcharge to all 1-1 owners.
2. You are REQUIRED to provide all owners with COPIES of everything they request including invoices, check stubs, bids, etc.
3. You are REQUIRED to get BOTH the 75% positive vote by owners AND the 90% positive vote by mortgage holders of all condo loans at Deer Ridge.  Therefore, ANY monies you spend on walkway ramps will be your personal responsibility to pay.
4. You are NOT allowed to ever have ANY special assessments – hence, the Asinine Assessment of $353,500 is NULL and VOID.  No owners are required to fund a penny of this money – and any monies received MUST be returned to those owners who have already paid.
5. Because you have committed multiple ultra vires acts that were outside the scope of authority granted you by the Master Deed and Bylaws, you and other board members are going to be liable to repay ALL overcharges to both current and past 1-1 owners, along with interest.  (This means you will be required to pay us back over $11,000 in our case – and more or less the same to other 1-1 owners – past AND present.)
6. RML and Ridge Resort Realty are NOT legitimate for SEVERAL reasons.  These entities must pay back every penny of GGRC’s money ever used by them – and these companies must be expeditiously sold or otherwise shut down.
7. All “annual meetings” held in April are not official Annual Meetings – hence, all decisions, and votes made, INCLUDING board member elections, are NULL and VOID.  This means that Luther Parker and every other member of the “board” are, in fact, NOT members of the Board and have no power whatsoever including setting assessments, making special assessments, setting rules and regulations, agreeing to any contracts about anything, etc.  We intend to sue to have a special master appointed by the court.
8. No board member or committee member may receive ANY compensation INCLUDING reimbursements for travel, meals, maid service, free storage or special remodeling of board member’s OR committee member’s units.  When we do our review of the books and records, we are going to add up every penny that has EVER been paid and intend to individually sue each of you for the full and complete reimbursement of all of this money.
9. The entire current “board” has committed multiple ultra vires acts that were outside the scope of authority granted you by the Master Deed and Bylaws even if you were a legitimate board.  As such, these acts show gross negligence on your part and on the part of your “unified board that speaks with one voice.”   As noted in the attorney’s answer to Question 12, these illegitimate acts of yours are actionable with all monies recoverable from you and all other “board members” and Joe Thomas personally – probably on a “joint and several” basis. That means we are going to go after the FULL amount for each illegitimate act from you and each of the board members until we collect EVERY penny that was spent on decisions that were outside the scope of authority.  Based on my prior blog postings, I have already identified over $120,000 that has been spent without the proper Article XII approvals.

All of the above information was previously emailed to you – but I also invite you all to read the full posting and detailed analysis of Mr. Howard’s letter at:

http://deerridgeowners.com/2010/02/18/independent-legal-opinion-ggrc-board-guilty-of-numerous-violations-353500-assessment-is-null-and-void/

Intent To Pursue Litigation – Possibly Including A Derivative Action Suit On Behalf of GGRC

This letter also officially puts you all on notice of our intent to immediately pursue litigation on these, and other points – including pursuing any and all legal claims against Joe Thomas and the “board”, as individuals.

Part of this litigation may be a derivative action suit whereby I, and other concerned owners, have GGRC, as plaintiff, sue each of you individually for your gross negligence and incompetence that has resulted from your multiple ultra vires acts that were outside the scope of authority granted you by the Master Deed and Bylaws.

As a consequence of us possibly suing you all, individually, on behalf of GGRC as plaintiff, it is my understanding that attorney Charles Sexton cannot represent you if he has been paid by GGRC in the past due to the obvious conflicts of interest.  I suggest you check with him as to whether this is true – and also if there is any past issue of him having also given personal legal advice to Joe Thomas or any one on the “board” – or whether he has simply represented GGRC and/or RML in all instances.

It is my understanding that you may possibly have a period of days to attempt to cure some or all of the above violations as a way of mitigating the multiple breaches of your fiduciary duties and some of your wrongful, self-serving and bad faith acts and omissions once you have received notice of possible violations.

Consider yourself officially notified as of today – although you were probably officially notified many months, and even YEARS, ago regarding many of these violations.

The Clock Is Ticking

Luther, I assume you have noticed that I have been spot on RIGHT on everything I have been saying for years on my blog – and that your vilification, slander and the libel contained in your diatribe letter you recently mailed to all owners was obviously full of lies and disinformation as a way to attempt to falsely discredit me.

This objective legal opinion from Attorney Howard validates virtually EVERYTHING I have been saying for years.  And, if need be, we will take the “board” members to court to prove it with finality.

I, along with many other owners, are sick and tired of the “board’s” “arbitrary and capricious ways” of illegitimately running GGRC and Deer Ridge – and I continue to be highly motivated to resolve these issues once and for all so that this property is finally properly governed by its Master Deed and Bylaws.

Luther, if you want these matters settled, before we move forward with filing our lawsuits, you better act quickly.  We won’t ask again and the clock is already ticking.

Govern yourself accordingly.

Robert
A-202

cc:  Charles Sexton, Attorney for GGRC, etc. via certified mail and email.

cc:  Deer Ridge Owners Blog

Help Stop The Abuse of Power By Joe Thomas And The “Board”

Please contribute today to the “Deer Ridge Litigation Fund.”